


since she was a voracious chewer

by thefudge



Category: Actor RPF, British Actor RPF, Real Person Fiction
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Ambiguity, Body Horror, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dubious Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Filipino Character, Filipino Mythology - Freeform, Gothic, Hollywood Gothic, Mythology References, Ovid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 10:40:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28469928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefudge/pseuds/thefudge
Summary: He was dating your sister. Your sister drowned. You think he did it. Tom/OFC
Relationships: Tom Hiddleston/Original Female Character(s), Tom Hiddleston/Original Female Character(s) of Color, Tom Hiddleston/Reader
Comments: 26
Kudos: 51





	since she was a voracious chewer

**Author's Note:**

> ...have my holidays been consumed with writing this over-wrought asshole of a story to the detriment of others? very likely.  
> do i regret it? maybe.  
> but i'm also very attached to this baby, because it's one of the most "complex" things i've ever written. and yes, i am full-on saying that.  
> i do hope you enjoy it! like, it would break my trash heart if you didn't, because this bitch right here Worked For It. why Tom Hiddleston of all people? he kinda creeps me out and i needed someone with that kind of aura for this fic. you'll know what i mean when you read it. in any case, i tried to do a deep-dive exploration of that creep factor (the eeriness of celebrities, in general)  
> i am also probably not doing the celebrity/reader sub-genre right, but i loooove exploring the second person point-of-view and i hope you do too.  
> anyway, please give my weird baby a chance!  
> oh yeah, and happy new year! 
> 
> (the title is taken from the Filipino epic I've quoted below)
> 
> (i'd also like to thank @irresistible-revolution for putting up with my fic-related nonsense!)

Swallow, my sister, O sister swallow,

How can thine heart be full of the spring?

“ _Itylus_ ”, Algernon Charles Swinburne

She picked up her chewing pouch

Complete with chewing things

Since she was a voracious chewer.

She took her gold hat,

Wore her jeweled headwear,

Her finely embroidered parasol,

Then she stepped out of the _tambi_ ,

Out to the mouth of the cave,

A beautiful goddess that she was

With matchless beauty (…)

She took off her dress

And went straight into the water,

Then swam gleefully to and fro

Back and forth, carelessly,

Until she felt satisfied and cool. 

\- from the Filipino/Malay pre-colonial epic _Hinilawod_

*******

You are soaking in the bathtub when you get the call. You’re shaving your legs. One leg is perched on the wall above your head. Your head is resting on the rim. You slide the razor slowly down your calf, the motion nearly perfect, but you still miss a few hairs. That tends to happen. You look at the dark little fur floating on the surface of the water. Then you reach for the phone.

You hear the voice of a weary police officer. He tells you the name of a hospital in LA. Your sister suffered an accident. He can’t say more over the phone, but it sounds pretty bad.

You drop your razor in the water and you clamber out like a disoriented seal, one leg unshaved.

It’s a six-hour drive to LA and your head is fuzzy. In the moment, you don’t even feel bad. You don’t feel anything.

 _She’ll be fine_ , you think, because your sister has that gift, of always being fine. She’s always landed on her feet, quite literally sometimes. When you were children, you used to jump from your second-floor balcony down into the alley below because the other kids dared you to, and Marisol never got a single scratch. 

You look down at your knees. There are a few shallow razor cuts.

You get on a bus, which takes longer, but you don’t feel able to drive. You huddle in your window seat, hair still wet, and you try to conjure a list of things you know about Marisol, because it feels like you don’t know that much at the moment. She’s thirty-two, she has a tattoo of your mother’s name above her left breast, and she’s lactose intolerant. She’s a jack of all trades: actress, stunt double, make-up artist, dancer. She’s a really good dancer, could have probably gone for ballet, _should_ have gotten into a top-tier school, but such is life. She was cast in at least two of those _Step Up_ movies and she was once a showgirl in a period musical about 1940s New York. She has landed other small gigs on network TV you can’t remember at the moment. None of them involved dancing. The last time you talked to her, which was not very recent, she said she had been cast in a serious Netflix drama, even though she didn’t have a talking part in it. She also said she was dating a celebrity, someone she _definitely_ couldn’t talk about, because he was an actual celebrity, and not the usual B or C-list guys she shared the occasional smoke and gin and tonic with. Her words, exactly. 

Marisol liked to tell tall tales, and some of them were even true. She was also the sweetest, funniest, most infuriating girl in the world.

You stop when you realize you’re using the past tense. 

_She’s fine. She’ll be fine_ , you keep thinking.

By the time you get there, it’s 5 AM and they tell you to go straight down to the morgue. Your hands are shaking. You can’t fill out the forms. One of the nurses gathers you in your arms but you’re stiff as stone.

Maybe you should have driven. Maybe you would’ve gotten here faster and she’d be alive.

No, they tell you, she was dead on arrival.

_Mar y sol_. Sea and sun. That was her name.

Your mother gave her that name because Marisol was in her belly when they crossed the sea and sun. Your mother gave you a slightly more prosaic, more American name. Yet, between you and Marisol, you were always the one who yearned to visit the islands named after the long-forgotten Spanish king. Your mother used to tell you that on some islands, people could live many years without ever seeing the ocean because they lived in the mountains and did not come down. On one island you could see skyscrapers; on another thatched roofs. In the northern islands there was Mariolatry and incense, in the southern islands there were mosques and prayer rugs. It was a world of many worlds, of mirrors multiplied, reflecting the surface of all the countries and peoples which had come and gone and left something behind. A labyrinthine archipelago, the Philippines stood apart, conquered yet untouched, divided and kept together by sea and sun.

You grew up in the looping, staggering streets of San Francisco, but you pretended to live in that world of islands your mother told you about, because it seemed to hold more mystery. Your mother tried to tell you that people there did the same boring things you did, watched shows on TV and played basketball in the street, but you never believed her. You wanted there to be a place that was different, less comfortable, yet also easier to bear.

Marisol was never very interested in that other place. She only wanted to go forward.

They lower the sheet enough for you to see her honeycomb face, puffy and swollen and small and blue, so many shades of the sea.

The urge is to cry out, but you have rarely done that in your life and you don’t know how to start now. There are fingers behind your eyes, fingers pressing down on your eyes, trying to blind you.

You go out in the hallway and sit down on a bench and try to get your eyesight back.

You don’t have anyone now. Marisol was the last one. Your entire family is gone. There are still aunts and cousins in the islands, or so you’ve been told, but you have not spoken to them since you were a child.

“I beg your pardon, are you Mari’s sister?”

The voice is soft and accented and it startles you. For some reason, you thought you were alone.

 _Mari_. No one ever called her that, least of all you. 

You look up.

His presence is incongruous.

He’s got that fresh, unspoiled look of someone with money, that kind of health that glows in the dim fluorescent lights of a hospital at five in the morning. The more you look at his youthful face, the more you notice graceful lines of aging around his eyes and mouth. It’s an open face, features almost exaggerated in solicitude, eyes delicately red with crying.

You know this face. You’ve seen it in movies.

“Yes,” you say.

“Tom,” he says, taking your hand in his. “I’m so sorry.” His palm is dry. “It’s hard to imagine that she –” He inhales with a shudder. “She was the loveliest person in the world.”

His eyes brim with tears again.

You want to say, _yes, she was_ , but you feel oddly cold, as if you were standing in the meat freezer at work. The fact that he’s crying and you’re _not_ makes you feel awful. You resent him for his lavish emotions. 

You shake his hand, wishing he’d let go. His other hand finds your shoulder and squeezes.

“What happened?” you say, and you sound harsher than you mean to. It’s confusing and distracting to see a known face, a _character_ , someone who shouldn’t be involved with real lives. It’s also intimidating. You don’t want to be intimidated at a time like this.

“They didn’t tell you?” he asks gently, blue eyes plaintive, not wanting to cause you more pain.

You wince. “I know she drowned. That much is obvious.” 

His jaw clenches slightly and he wipes his eyes without blinking.

“Yeah, it was my –”

He stops and starts again. “I shouldn’t have gone out. She’d had too much to drink. By the time I returned, she was …God, it’s horrible. And foolish too, to die like that.”

The word _foolish_ comes out like a stale rush of air.

He must have realized he’d said something wrong, because he squeezes your shoulder again. His cologne is almost imperceptible, yet the slightest waft makes your stomach queasy. “I only meant – this was not how she was supposed to go, face down in a shallow pool, you know what I mean?”

It’s so bizarre to hear the words _face down in a shallow_ _pool_ spoken so tenderly.

“I know what you mean,” you say, automatically. “It was your pool?”

“It happened at my house, yes.”

“She…was she visiting?”

“She often stayed with me.”

So, Marisol had been telling you the truth. She really was dating a celebrity.

“She drowned in your pool,” you say, stomach roiling.

“I’m so sorry.”

“She drowned in your pool in your house,” you repeat.

He nods wordlessly.

It doesn’t sound the least bit real. She was the ocean and the sun. Water was not supposed to kill her, especially not something as pathetically small as a private pool. The whole thing sounds like one of those tasteless practical jokes where, if you don’t crack until the end, they give you a prize. A horrid little laugh builds up in your throat, until you can’t keep it down any longer.

You laugh. It comes out like a savage chortle.

He drops his hands from you. His eyes are sad, a little surprised, and yes, repelled.

Repelled by you and your laugh.

Suddenly, all you feel is helpless anger. You’re angrier than you’ve ever been, angrier than when your mother died, angrier than when your father left, angrier than all those times you had to be quiet and eat humble pie. You’re _furious_ that the last person you loved died in a fucking pool. And you’re livid that you have to deal with this stranger, this piece of shit pretty boy you’ve only seen in movies who is standing in front of you, in this ill-lit corridor, telling you he was not there, telling you he let your sister die.

So you say it, out loud, but not too loud, because you hate making a scene.

“Why the fuck did you let her die?”

You’re surprised at the viciousness in your voice. You don’t often say the things you’re thinking, especially not _those_ things. No, that was Marisol.

The blue in his eyes has become washed-out, almost white. You can see tiny red capillaries blooming around the iris.

He lowers his head an inch. “You have every right to be angry.”

He sounds completely understanding, but the kindness feels like a small lashing, like punishment for your lack of decorum. There is something contemptuous in that kindness.

But you can’t bring yourself to say sorry.

“I think the police will want to talk to you,” he says, unfailingly gentle. “Will you come with me?”

All through the police interview, you think about your mother telling your sister to pack her bags and your sister telling her she’d already fit everything into a small rucksack.

 _Why the fuck did you let her die,_ you keep repeating in your head, aiming the question at Tom, at yourself, at your mother, your father, everyone you know.

The officers tell you Marisol’s death will most likely be ruled an accident. Can you confirm that your sister was dating Tom?

No, you can’t confirm it, but she did tell you. At least, she _hinted_ at it. But you don’t know anything. This upsets you. You should have tried to find out. You did not always believe Marisol. She liked her narratives to have suspense and adventure. You often couldn’t tell what was real, but it did not matter back then. You simply liked the storytelling. But maybe you were a bad listener. Maybe you’ve always been a bad listener. 

They tell you there is video footage of your sister stumbling into the pool, wading to the deeper end, hair wrapped around her face like a sheet. They can’t show you the video footage yet. They can show you some frames. You don’t want to see the photos, but you nod anyway. When they spread them out on the table, you see a puzzle of a girl in a jade dress, you see her fragmenting, floating figure, you see her beautiful brown curls, lifeless. You also see a pair of heels. She walked into the pool with her shoes on. They weighed her down.

She was dying in a pool while you were soaking in a bathtub.

You nod again and they take the photos away.

They tell you her blood alcohol content was very high, as if that should explain the rest, but you are left with more questions. 

When you come out of the interview, Tom is waiting for you in the hallway. This is the second time he’s there when you don’t want him to be and you don’t know what to say.

He repeats to you what he told the police. He had gone out to meet with a friend. He tells you the name of the friend. Marisol was getting ready at home. They were supposed to go out to dinner. When he came home he climbed up to the bedroom. Yes, they shared a bedroom. He happened to look out the window and he saw her dark figure in the pool. He rushed down, almost losing his footing on the stairs. That’s why he has a faint scratch on his forehead. You had not noticed the scratch. You still can’t see it. His skin is gold-white, like the watch on his wrist. It does not seem possible to scratch it.

It was too late, he says. He couldn’t save her, though he tried. He went in after her, carried her out. He pried her mouth open, tried pumping water out of her lungs. He held her in his arms for a long time.

You shake your head. You don’t want to hear about the way he held her. You want to ask about the drinking, but you’re suddenly interrupted by a burly man with a cropped set of hair who shakes your hand. Tom introduces you to his lawyer, who looks confidently bored. He says he will take it from here. You ought to rest. It’s been a taxing day. Do you have somewhere to stay, Tom asks?

It’s too fast, you think. It doesn’t make sense. There needs to be another reason, another reason for all this, but it’s beginning to dawn on you that it won’t go away. Her body is cold and so are you. You will never hear her voice again. She will never pinch the soft skin at the crook of your elbow. She will never take you out clubbing, like she did after you dropped out of med school. She is unreachable and ungraspable and this will never change.

“Why had she been drinking?” you ask, ignoring his question.

There is only blue in his eyes, pupils shrunk to nothing. “I…don’t know how familiar you were with Mari’s habits.”

You frown. “She wasn’t a drunk.”

“Goodness no. But …sometimes she indulged. It wasn’t anything serious. At least, I didn’t think it was.”

“She drank a normal amount,” you argue.

“I think we should talk about this somewhere more private. Do you have somewhere to stay?” he asks again. 

“I’m fine. I’ll find a motel until I…figure things out.” 

“I can’t, in good conscience, let you do that. Please, I’d like to help. Mari meant a great deal to me.”

You shut your eyes briefly. “Could you please call her Marisol?”

He did not expect that.

“Oh. Yes. Yes, of course.”

He doesn’t understand; she was always her full name. She would have never wanted half of it. You wonder if she let him call her that. You make a note to ask him later.

Later?

Yes, it seems he is guiding you towards the exit and you’re letting him. You step through the back door of the precinct with him.

Outside, people are taking photos. You instinctively lift an arm to your face, though it doesn’t do much. He presses a hand to the small of your back and pushes you forward. There is a weird momentum to that push. Almost like he wants to apply more pressure, but cannot.

“This way,” he says, but it’s not just him anymore. Two stern-looking guys in tan suits are keeping a wide perimeter around his car. You crawl inside.

You realize this is going to be big; the kind of scandal the internet has a meltdown over. It’s going to be vicious. And it will involve your sister’s name. 

“You have to keep her out of it,” you say as he slides in next to you. He has to take a moment to understand what you mean.

“I will try,” he says, inclining his head. “But I don’t think I have that sort of influence here.”

“I don’t want this to be what people remember her for,” you say coldly and you’re reminded of your mother and her icy demeanor when she wanted something she could not have, when the world conspired against her.

“I will do everything in my purview, but I can’t pretend I’m not a public figure. This is...well, it’s a terribly unpleasant situation,” he says.

 _Unpleasant for whom,_ you want to ask.

Now that you are sitting next to him, his cologne feels stronger, the citrus scent of it reminding you of the morgue. You turn your head away.

“Why was she dating _you_ , anyway?” you ask, openly rude. You can’t help it. All you’ve wanted to do since you’ve met him is to pour all your helpless fury on his groomed head. You’ve never courted conflict, choosing to back down when possible, but this not-very-real famous man presents a kind of loophole. You feel that he’s a different class of person, the kind of person who absorbs every bad word. It’s almost like insulting a poster pinned up on the wall in your teenage bedroom.

To his credit, he takes it all in stride.

He tells you about an indie film he and your sister were shooting for Netflix, something about a man coping with the death of his wife, something very profound and literary, something based on a novel. He tells you it’s one of his favorite novels, which strikes you as odd, but then he says your sister had also read that novel and they’d had very long and fruitful discussions about it.

You blink. That doesn’t sound like Marisol, not the way he describes it.

He tells you Marisol plays a jogger in the film. He plays the protagonist who often sees her running in the park. The jogger’s figure reminds him of his dead wife, so one day he decides to follow her. He runs after her. He corners her under a scenic bridge. She thinks he is about to attack her, but he starts crying instead. The jogger hugs him out of pity. Then she runs away, never to be seen again. The man doesn’t know if she was even real. It’s just the happenstance of life, he says. People you only meet once, like living ghosts.

As you listen to him talk, you decide that sounds really fucking stupid. In fact, you understand why Marisol didn’t mention the details of the movie to you.

You interrupt him halfway through. “Sorry, where are we going?”

“I – well, I have a small apartment in Venice, if that’s all right.”

“We’re not going to the house where…”

“No, no, that wouldn’t – that wouldn’t be right. Besides, I’d like to give the police all the space they need to do their job.”

You nod and then you think about how much you don’t want to go anywhere with him, how much you’d like to be lying in bed with your sister like you did when you were kids. You got to know the shape of her before really knowing her as a person. It was the best kind of intimacy. You realize he has also slept in the same bed with her and got to know the shape of her. And you feel inexplicably jealous and hurt.

You don’t notice him staring at you.

“You look a lot like her,” he says quietly.

You must look surprised, because that doesn’t make much sense. For one thing, it’s completely false. There is barely a passing resemblance between you.

But you don’t contradict him.

He’s making you lunch.

He’s making grilled chicken salad for both of you. He’s chopping tomatoes and spinach leaves. He has scrubbed his hands pink clean and removed his watch and rolled up his shirt-sleeves. He says he enjoys cooking. It calms him.

You sit on a stool in the kitchen and watch him work.

You feel like putting your head on the marble countertop and pressing your ear to the surface, listening to the knife’s chop-chop-chop.

It feels utterly surreal; twenty-four hours ago you were eating a can of tuna and corn in the bathtub and now a famous actor is making you chicken salad in Venice.

“She told me about you, by the way,” he says as he’s checking on the grill.

“What?”

“Mari – Marisol,” he corrects himself. “She told me you work for a non-profit. Food bank, is it? She said you were always the responsible sister.”

You rest your elbow on the counter and your forehead in your palm. You’re only now noticing how much your head hurts. “The first part is true. I don’t know about responsible.”

“She said you were the one who took care of your mother.”

You flinch. “She shouldn’t have told you that.”

Something flashes in those blue eyes, a darker shade of blue, a sense of injured pride. He feels he has every right to know these things, which confounds you.

You sigh. “I’m sorry if I’m being rude, but my sister didn’t tell me anything about you. I had no idea this was…”

“Serious?” he finishes for you. “We were supposed to go public. We thought we’d do it in the summer, at the film premiere.”

There is something wistful in his voice, something lingeringly happy that should have no place in this miserable conversation. You frown. “I guess now you will go public, whether you want to or not.”

You’re once again surprised by the _bitterness_ in your voice, the desire to bite. You can’t seem to be able to speak to him with any measure of civility.

He lowers the knife. “I was the one who insisted we make it public sooner rather than later. Your sister wanted to wait.”

You try to wrap your head around that. Marisol was never one for patience.

“How long had she been living with you?”

“About three months.” 

Three months. That feels like a lot.

He’s pouring olive oil on the collard greens. 

“What happened yesterday?” you ask, staring at the glistening green.

“What do you mean?”

“She was drinking. Did you have a fight?”

“Why would you think–? No, we did not. Not that I was aware of.” His voice is guarded and hurt, again.

“There must have been a reason she was drinking.”

Tom leans his hands on the countertop. “As I’ve said before, I did not think she had a real problem. I thought she was keeping it in check. Maybe – maybe I was inattentive. Did your sister tell you she took antidepressants?”

You blink, disoriented. “No.”

“I’ll send you her prescriptions. She told me your father had been chronically depressed. She said it ran in the family. I thought you knew.”

You get off the stool. “Dad wasn’t – it wasn’t like that. That’s not what happened.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you, I only –”

“Could I take a shower?”

He eyes you with pity and compassion and just a hint of caution.

“Of course. But won’t you wait to eat something first?”

“No, I really need a shower.”

“Very well.”

You wrap your arms around your knees and crouch under the jet of hot water. You cry for the first time that day. You feel able to cry, finally. You moan and gargle and pantomime the filling of your throat with water. How did she feel, at the end?

You can’t believe she told him about Dad.

You startle when you hear your name. Tom is calling out your name, asking you if you’re all right. He’s standing just outside the bathroom door.

The door doesn’t have a lock. You shiver.

“I’m okay!” you shout over the water.

He doesn’t call out again. You don’t know if he heard you. But as you scrub your body clean, you have the odd feeling of being watched. You feel him standing just outside the door. Just in case.

When you come out of the shower, you notice a fluffy bathrobe on a peg that wasn’t there and a faded T-shirt resting on top of the towels. You don’t understand.

You dry yourself and shrug back into your sweat-stained clothes. The mirror is fogged, but the dark outline in it looks larger than you. You leave quickly.

When you come down, he’s still in the kitchen. He’s made tea.

“Oh, I thought you’d like to wear something more comfortable,” he says, looking at you critically. Drops of water fall from your hair and soak your blouse. He expected you to wear the bathrobe. He expected you to shed your dirty clothes. You wonder if they smell.

“I’d like to help with the funeral arrangements, if you’ll let me,” he adds, pouring you a cup. There’s the outline of muscle in his arm as he pours.

You think about taking Marisol’s body back to San Francisco, burying her on top of your mother, casket to casket. You feel lightheaded.

“Will you do me a favor?” you rasp.

“Of course.” His mouth widens into a soft, accommodating smile.

“Could you leave?”

“Sorry?”

“Could you please leave? I think I need to be alone.”

His brow furrows. You are asking him to leave his own apartment. You’re aware of how rude you’re being, but you can’t bring yourself to care.

“You want me to leave,” he says, watching the steam rise out of the cup.

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“You don’t want me here,” he says, softly, almost self-pitying.

“No.”

If he were any other man, you might have more trouble telling him to go, but he’s not a real man, not even a real person. He’s someone they made in a lab, probably. He must have been real once, must have been gangly and ginger and shy about his large forehead, but that's all gone now. 

He walks up to you, his movements dreamlike, the least bit solid. He stares at you with eyes smothered in blue.

“Then I will go.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll write you my private phone number. There’s more food in the fridge. Make yourself at home.”

You thank him again.

He leans forward and squeezes your shoulder, wet from your hair.

“It’ll be all right.”

You attempt a smile, you don’t know why. He smiles back.

It’s only when the door closes behind him that you can finally breathe.

Marisol is dead, and there are things about her you did not know. She died unhappy, for one. Did she really tell Tom those things about your father? What else did she tell him? Why hadn’t she talked to you about it?

You try to eat a bit of salad, but you end up puking in the kitchen sink. You wash the bowl and the sink thoroughly. You drink some tea and sit on the couch and try not to dry-heave. The tea is strong and delicious and it makes you drowsy. You lay your head down. You don’t want to fall asleep, but the next time you open your eyes, the windows are dark.

You try to open a window, but they’re sealed.

You stumble to the front door. It’s locked. You can’t find the keys.

He didn’t leave you any keys.

He’s locked you in. By mistake, probably.

You’ll call him. That's what you’ll do. 

You find your phone on one of the book shelves. The screen is dark. There’s no battery left.

Panic hatches in your chest. You can hear sirens in the distance. Then the humming quiet of an island. This is a nightmare and the trick is to understand that it’s a nightmare and wake up. That’s all there is to it. None of this is real.

You sit down by the door and put your head on your knees.

You must've fallen asleep like that. When you come to again, there’s a cold compress pressed to your forehead.

You’re lying on the couch. How did you get here?

He’s sitting beside you, right next to your head, the back of his hand lightly grazing your cheek.

“You’re rather warm,” he says with concern.

You groan and slap his hand away clumsily.

“Get…away…ffrommeee…”

His blue eyes are slippery, cold eels. “There’s no need for that. I’m only trying to help. If you haven’t noticed, that’s what I’ve been doing all day.”

A part of you knows he’s right, but another part of you is all instinct and instinct operates with blood and guts. Your gut tells you it was his fault. He killed your sister.

“You killed my sister,” you say, looking up at him.

Tom scoffs and shakes his head. His face looks larger, fleshier, looming above you. His hand is larger than your head. “You cannot honestly believe that. You’re in a great deal of pain. I’m sure you’ll see things more clearly in the morning.”

You try to swallow the bitterness down. “You probably made her want to die.”

Not that you have any proof of that, only that gut feeling. 

He smiles at you in a cold, artificial way. One of his arms leans against the back of the couch. “Did I? That’s quite a leap to make. I generally try to make people happy. And she was quite happy with me.”

“Then why was she taking antidepressants?”

“To _continue_ being happy,” he replies with just a graceful hint of sadness. “And to be able to function in society, but that is a conversation I fear is too complex for you, at the moment.”

You roll over on your belly and mumble something under your breath.

“What’s that?” He leans down closer. He lifts your chin up. “What did you say?”

“You’re…full of s-sshit,” you slur.

He snorts and rubs his thumb against your chin. “You’re a feral little thing. Rather antisocial too. You hardly know me, but you’ve been abusing me all day. Marisol was much more graceful. She would’ve never behaved this way. She wouldn’t like to see you like this.”

The tenderness in his voice gives you the strange feeling of being slowly cut open.

“You ought to be a little more grateful,” he adds, dabbing the compress to your forehead.

“You ought to go fuck yourself,” you retort, trying to crawl off the couch.

“I see you’re not handling this very well…” he trails off, voice filled with concern. He catches you by the waist and reels you back in. Your cheek brushes his knee. He whispers something in your hair. It sounds like, “I’m sure you’ll come round, eventually.”

When you were little, your mother liked to scare you and your sister with stories of the Manananggal. If you did not do your homework or neglected your chores, if you sassed your parents or disrespected your teachers, if you got your dresses and socks dirty on purpose and if you forgot to say your prayers at night, the terrifying bat creature would come flying through the window and chew the heart out of your chest and drink the blood in your veins and the next day you would feel sluggish and tired and close to death.

This mythical monster lived in the islands, but there was a way he could reach you in San Francisco. Your mother explained that the Manananggal removed his lower body and left his feet in Manila while the rest of him flew with the wings of a bat across the ocean. In fact, his name meant “remover” because he could remove parts of himself. This also made him vulnerable, because if he could not rejoin his legs by sunrise, he would perish. It made a great deal of sense to you. All things must have a weakness, and all things must be whole. And you were _deadly_ afraid of him, even if you were told in Sunday school that good Catholics should not believe in demons and vampires and creatures of the night because they’re all heresy, merely a contemptible myth. But you knew your mother wouldn’t lie to you and you knew that God had made these things too. Perhaps this is why you continued to be good.

Marisol stopped believing first.

One night, she told you that your father had told her that the Manananggal could also be female. Was usually female, in fact.

“I’m not afraid of a naked woman flying through our window. Are you?” she asked, pushing her little finger in your chest. “Are you afraid of her breasts?”

You giggled together in bed. You didn’t know she was being serious. From that moment on, Marisol took a step forward, and you took a step back, because you never stopped being afraid.

And, after all, why would it be less fearsome if it was a woman?

The creature has flown out to rejoin his legs.

You open your eyes.

You feel drained.

It’s as if you were a child again, as if you’d been visited by your old fear. You gently lift your head. One of the windows is open. You feel the cold freshness of morning on your cheek, but you don’t know what happened before. The night is a blur. You look down at yourself. You’re wearing the same clothes. Your body is no different. Nothing has been altered. Nothing has been damaged, and yet you feel tender and bruised. Where did he go? What did he do?

There’s porridge in a bowl on the coffee table and there’s a smear of dark honey in the milk. There are also two envelopes. One envelope has plane tickets, the other a note.

_I took the liberty of paying for your sister’s remains to be flown to San Francisco. I will probably meet you there for the funeral. You’ve got my number and I’ve got yours, so let’s stay in touch. Do let me know if I can be of service with other burial arrangements. Your plane leaves at noon. Thank you for a lovely evening,_

_Tom_

_A lovely evening_ keeps percolating in your mind as you reach for the porridge bowl. You’re suddenly very hungry. You eat everything. You lick the spoon too.

He got you business class tickets, which feels expensive in a rather cheap way. You might have enjoyed the novelty of the experience and the extra space for your legs if you weren’t feeling nauseous and hungover. Did you have too much to drink last night? Is that what happened? Is that when you gave him your number? What did you talk about? You’ve never lost time like this before. It makes you jittery.

He texts you when you land.

_Let me know when you’ve made it home safely._

Your fingers hover over the keys.

_What did you to do me last night –_

But you erase it quickly.

 _Thanks, I’m safe,_ you type instead.

There’s a box you keep in the back of the drawer. It’s not supposed to be a secret. You take it out often enough, but you don’t feel it should be out in the open.

You like spending time with your father’s notebooks and papers. It’s a part of him you can more easily digest, even if your grasp of Tagalog is utilitarian at best, and your grasp of Latin is even more tenuous.

He wanted you to have these. He must have known you would be the only one in the family who would not dispose of them.

The last time you spoke on the phone, he was camping with his boyfriend in Oregon. You felt pleased that he remembered your name. He could not remember much at the end, but you always felt privileged you were one of the things that did not fade. He said he was happy, that last time you spoke. He wished your mother could find that same sense of wellbeing. You had to remind him his wife had died of a heart attack three years before. He got very quiet on the phone. Then he started describing a beautiful bird he had seen fly past him, but half the words were in Tagalog. You listened for a while. Then you said goodbye in English.

You open the notebook labeled #3, your favorite one because your father wrote yours and your sister’s name in the margins of his translation. He said names were charmed with luck. His great ambition had been to translate all of Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_ into Tagalog. He nearly succeeded. But once he arrived in America, he found that what he wanted most was to translate himself.

You sit in bed with the notebook on your knees and you gently flip the pages. His small handwriting, neat and crammed on the lined page, reminds you of his yellowed, perfumed fingers holding the pen. The black ink has not faded. You see _Marisol_ written atop the page and your name below. Between these names, your father has drawn the wings of birds in flight, black ‘v’s curling at the end.

It used to be, one sister turned into a nightingale, the other one into a swallow. You remember, at bedtime, your father used to thunder his favorite line as he chased you both to bed:

_Nulla fuga est capto, spectat sua praemia raptor._

No escape is possible, the captor gloats over his prize.

The captor was Tereus, king of Thrace, who fell madly in love with his wife’s sister, Philomela, raped her, and cut out her tongue, so that she could not tell Procne what had happened. But Philomela wove a beautiful tapestry, depicting the horrid crime to her sister, and she and Procne concocted their revenge. They killed Procne’s own son and served him as a meal to Tereus. When the tyrant found out, he chased them with an axe, but the gods were merciful and turned them into birds.

Isn’t that always the way? You are told escape is impossible, yet they always forget about flight.

You always thought it was a grim bedtime story, a grim way for a father to say goodnight.

But which one are you?

Nightingale or swallow?

Marisol did not want to look at the notebooks. To her it was work done in vain, work meant to injure. But you know she would have wanted a part of Dad with her. So, you slide one of the tattered notebooks underneath her violet-tipped fingers. Her hands are larger, ill-defined, her body bloated, the skin loose and sagging. She looks old before her time, but still beautiful. They tell you these are the after-effects of drowning. She looks just like Mom. Inside the casket, you’ve stashed your mother’s sewing kit with which she mended your hems and buttons and skirts and pillow-cases and blankets. Her own little tapestry.

It breaks your heart, how little you have to give your sister.

You feel eyes on the back of you, eyes of complete strangers. It should have been a small funeral with people from the block, but every news outlet and tabloid has found out about your sister and her unsavory end and they’ve all come to pay their due.

He is there to protect you, to shield you and Marisol from their prying eyes. To make sure all eyes are on him instead.

He stands next to you in front of the grave. He’s wearing a pair of dark shades, but you can still see the blue of his eyes in your periphery. He is crying very quietly. You are not crying.

You take the first mound of dry earth between your fingers and rain it down on the casket. You crouch low and say, only for your sister to hear, “Nulla fuga est capto, spectat sua praemia raptor.”

When you rise, Tom is there to give you a hand. He has opened his umbrella. He is drawing you within its radius. You let go of his arm and stand next to him under that little black roof. His mouth is a soft, smiling line. You shiver. You get the sense that he heard you.

Afterwards, the mourners convene at the food bank. You’re handing out parcels of food as alms for the soul of the dead. There’s also a small buffet. Your head of department told you it was all right as long as it came out of your paycheck, but Tom insisted on paying for everything.

Just as he now insists on helping you with the parcels. He’s also ladling soup into bowls for the elderly. He’s unfailingly kind to the handful of neighbors who’ve come to see Marisol off. Some of them still remember her as a child. Tom takes them aside. He wants to ask them so many questions. He holds an assuring hand on their bowed backs as they speak, making them feel important. There’s a dull flash behind him. Photographs are taken surreptitiously. At least a couple of would-be journalists are live-blogging the event.

You lower your head and say a few _Glory Be_ ’s and make the sign of the cross on the parcels. Your mother would have wanted a Novena, nine days of praying and singing and feasting, as they did in the islands. That is how the soul takes flight. But you’re not sure nine days would be enough.

You don’t notice him returning to your side until he speaks.

“Let me help you with that.”

He takes the parcel out of your hands.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I enjoy it,” he says, giving you a small smile.

You observe him for a moment. This is not the first time you take him in. He is, you admit, a fairly good-looking individual, both soft-lined and masculine, a humble lord of the mansion. But there is something not quite right in the arrangement of his fine features, some kind of malady that turns his skin pinker, freckled, a sun-kissed shadow of inbreeding, of slave-traders on deck of their schooners, of deputy governors of the East India Company stuffing their pockets with stolen diamonds. You see history unfolding across his large forehead and then collapsing along the lines of his nervous, austere mouth. He is handsome, but decrepit, refined but also roughly-hewn, stitched hastily out of the skins of those he paid for, disturbing and compelling to look at.

_What did you do to me that night?_

“You’re staring,” he says, not displeased.

“How long do you think the cameras will be around?” you ask, busying yourself with the food.

“Not much longer, I hope. They must’ve got all the footage they wanted. I’m going to insist they leave soon.”

You frown. You are aware this is, in part, a publicity stunt. Given the sensational nature of Marisol’s death, people on the internet are swapping all sorts of theories involving Tom. You’re not the only one who’s pointed the finger at him. He’s doing damage control. But how _much_ damage control? You don’t think he’s faking the tears or the interest, but there is something more elusive behind his actions. And you don’t know exactly where you fit in.

“May I ask… what you said earlier in front of the grave?” he inquires, interrupting your train of thought. “It sounded like a chant.”

You shrug, trying to appear unmoved. “It was Latin.”

“Yes, I rather thought it was.”

He waits for you to say more, but you give him nothing else. You’re determined to stay quiet.

“I’m leaving tomorrow, unless you need me to stay longer,” he says, his tone light and friendly.

“No, that won’t be necessary. Thank you for everything.”

He gives you a sad, commiserating smile but his face is wiped clean of emotion. It must be an actor’s trick. “You should come see me in _Coriolanus_. We’re having a smaller production than the one in London, but I think it’ll be to our benefit. We’re staging it at the Geffen in a month. I’d love for you to be there.”

You feel a strange sense of déjà vu, as if you’ve been here before, as if you’ve done all of this already, as if you’re ladling soup at your own funeral. 

“Unless you absolutely hate theatre,” he says, with a short, disbelieving laugh.

“I don’t hate theater,” you say, feeling suddenly so very tired.

“That’s settled, then. I’ll save you a good seat.”

He squeezes your shoulder, fingers lingering on your arm as the camera flashes behind you.

In the days that follow, various ex-roommates and landlords send you Marisol’s scattered belongings, a handful of clothes and makeup and broken kitchen appliances. They also want to talk to you. Everyone does.

You get calls at work and emails from all sorts of individuals, claiming to be working for one online outlet or another. They want you to tell them about your sister. They want you to tell them about the alcohol and the drugs and the steamy affair with an A-list celebrity. They want _your_ side of the story, of course. It’s everything you expected, but much worse.

You leave a trail of angry silence in your wake. You want to live in that silence until everyone forgets.

But he doesn’t forget.

He sends you the ticket two weeks in advance and asks you via email if you’ll be needing a car from your hotel. You haven’t booked a hotel. You’ve decided you’re not going. You’ll miss the play and he’ll move on.

But you know, deep down, that you can’t get off that easily.

 _Nulla fuga est capto_ , or have you forgotten?

He calls you three days before the due date.

You’re at the public library, reading from a pathology book about drowning.

_Unlike manual strangulation, multiple gunshot wounds, and multiple blows to the head, which are almost always homicidal, the postmortem findings in homicidal and accidental drowning are near indistinguishable…_

You have to leave the reading room to answer your phone.

His voice on the other end sounds very much removed from the homicidal or the accidental.

“Have I caught you at a bad time?”

No, I’m just at the library.”

“Oh. What are you reading?”

“Books.”

He laughs a small laugh. “How clever of you. I’m calling because you haven’t answered my email about the car.”

You watch the streetlights come to life outside. “Thank you, but I won’t be needing a car. I don’t think I can make it. I’m not feeling very well and I have a lot of work to do, but I’m sure you’ll be great.”

There’s silence on the other end. You look at your phone, but he hasn’t hung up.

After a while, he says, “That’s very disappointing. I think it’ll do you a world of good to come.”

“That’s nice, but -”

“Besides,” he interrupts, “I haven’t had a chance to give you Marisol’s belongings.”

The building seems to rock back and forth with you. “What?”

“I still have some of her clothes and books and jewelry. That sort of thing.” 

_That sort of thing._

You lean against a stone pillar. It’s cold and comforting.

“Why didn’t you give them to me at the funeral?”

“I honestly haven’t had the heart to pack them. I thought you could help me.”

You inhale. “Well, when you _do_ have the heart to pack them, you can send them to me via post.”

“I’d _really_ rather give them to you personally. Wouldn’t you?”

You clench your jaw. _I’d rather you fucking choked._

But you feel his will pushing you forward, like a phantom hand on the small of your back. In a sense, you’re already there. “Yes, I guess that makes sense.”

You go to his fucking play. 

Caius Marcius loves war. He loves war so very much that he is willing to fight under any banner, abandon wife and child, switch allegiances and give his arms to Rome’s enemies, only to remain faithful to war, his only mistress. It is the only language he understands, the only thing that gives him meaning and maintains his image.

Tom, the actor, doesn’t make you believe that he loves war. He looks slight, but wiry on stage. There’s an ease to his playing not because he acts like a man who loves war, but because there are no bonds inside him, nothing to tether him to hearth and home. It might as well be war. But it’s not even war. He’s a wandering soldier who wishes to find something to care about. His wet-eyed tragedy is that he cannot truly find a thing to love, though he craves the appreciation of others. Nothing really holds his interest; war is simply a pretext for his lack of substance. Sculpted flesh looking for a soul.

Caius Marcius also despises the rabble, the populace, the people at large. If Rome cannot love and appreciate his martial efforts, then he will crush them under his foot. 

“You common cry of curs!” he cries on the stage, at the audience, and at you. He hates the ignoble breath of the people. He prizes their love as much as he prizes “the dead carcasses of unburied men that do corrupt my air”.

He walks up and down the stage and points fingers at the undiscerning rabble. His blue eyes shine with tears of disgust. He wants all of you to know how much he hates your commonality.

Supposedly drenched in blood from head to toe, he wears the flaking red dye with gusto. He looks like a dangerous fool, a swaggering fascist, a reckless romantic in search of a cause. And none of those things, at all.

The conflict, always, is the _lack_. There is nothing inside him, and there is everything outside.

He tugs at a chain in the ceiling and water falls upon his head and washes his wounds clean, but does not diminish the red. He swallows the water until he can’t do it anymore. He lets it run down his nose and chin. He is the boorish hero of his own doom.

From where you’re sitting, he looks like he’s drowning. From where you’re sitting, his eyes don’t mind the water. He’s staring at you.

You watch the crowd swell and converge on him. You watch him shake hands and embrace strangers and laugh with all his teeth, delighted and humbled by the attention. You watch him become transparent, armed with roses. Do they remember what happened to your sister? Maybe they do, and maybe that adds to the spectacle.

You stand in the lobby, tapping the wall behind you with the sole of your tennis shoe, checking your phone, scrolling through your feed. You think about your father, how much he enjoyed going to see a show, any show, as long as it was out of the house and with you.

People pass you by, chatting excitedly, eager to dive back into the city. Bit by bit, the theater empties. There’s no one left but you and the personnel.

The lights are dimmed in their sconces. You turn to join the outside world, but you hear his footsteps behind you. You turn. There’s still a bit of red dye behind his ear. This is what you notice as he stands before you, the back of his burnished hair a lesser red.

He’s wearing a fresh shirt and jacket, but there’s a stickiness to him, the sweat of a different body, the stage body.

“I hope you haven’t been waiting long. Shall we have some dinner?”

You feel prim and bold in your ankle-length dress and tennis shoes. “We should probably just go straight to the house so I can grab my sister’s things.”

His expression falters. You must admit, there is something alluring in his being disappointed by your rejection. Anyone looking at it from the outside would find the whole thing pretty ludicrous: that you could say no, that he would even ask.

“And… maybe order some pizza,” you add, scratching your arm.

He smiles, mollified. “All right then.”

“What did you think of the play?” he asks you in the car, but you note the trepidation in his voice. He’s asking you about himself specifically.

You consider the question honestly. “I liked it. I liked how words made things happen.”

He looks at you as if you were a little slow. You can hear the remark on the tip of his tongue. _Yes, that is how plays generally work._

But he only smiles uneasily. “Ah… did you?”

You shift in your seat. “Like, for instance, when they _declared_ you Coriolanus. You stopped being Caius Marcius. You became the man who conquered that city. When they banished you, they spoke the words and you were _out_. When you pledged your allegiance to Aufidius, all it took was the words to make it real. Speech is action. The words are spoken and…” You gesture with your hands at a ball of yarn coming undone. 

You think about your mother telling Marisol she was no longer welcome home. You think about the formula of banishment. Speech made action. _Pack your bags._

Tom regards you, reassessing you.

“I see what you mean. That’s something I hadn’t considered before. Coriolanus himself is not one for eloquent speeches.”

“No, but that’s just it,” you insist. “If he’d been more eloquent, the words would have been less effective. The more words you say, the more it sort of becomes vague and multi-layered…it becomes harder to act.”

“More words disperse meaning,” he says, helpfully. “More words and you get indecision and doubt and ambiguity. Actually, many have said the other side of Coriolanus is Hamlet.”

You smile, remembering another place, another time. “Yeah, that’s exactly it.”

He leans towards you. “It’s nice to have a proper conversation about these things. I don’t often find the right interlocutors.”

“Well, not if you call them _interlocutors_ ,” you remark.

He chuckles. “I suppose you have a point.” 

You slip your phone out of your purse and check the time. It’s past ten o’clock. You should’ve scheduled the packing for the morning. You want to ask him to let you off at your hotel, but he’s suddenly speaking to you about your father.

“I’m sure you and your father had many interesting discussions. Marisol told me you were the bookworms of the family.”

You raise your eyes. “What?”

“She told me you were thick as thieves. She said you were his favorite.” 

He tells you this as if he were sharing a piece of chocolate, as if he were giving you something sweet.

You look out the window. “I wish she hadn’t told you those things. They’re private. And they’re not even true.”

“Then, what is true?”

“Why do you want to know?” you ask.

“Because, for better or worse, your sister will always be a part of my life. And so will you. We are connected by something awful, it’s true, but we cannot avoid it.” He’s looking at you with a degree of intimacy that unsettles you, because it’s not quite intimacy, not really.

“Right. Until the next girl who drowns in your pool.”

You hadn’t meant to say that. You thought you’d concealed the spite. But there’s that quality to him, the _unreality_ of him, where you feel you can toss words into the abyss without thinking.

His face becomes very still, but his soft, forgiving smile doesn’t fade. It’s anchored in the lines of his face, always there when required.

He lowers his eyes and continues as if you had not said anything. “I suppose…there’ also the fact that I’ve always wanted to know about other people’s families. My own view of family was discontinued. My parents divorced when I was barely twelve.”

You blink. You were not ready for that shift in the conversation.

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. I like to think the whole thing made me more … _compassionate_ in my understanding of human frailty.”

You frown. “You can’t actually mean that. That sounds like a quote.”

His smile narrows. “It _is_ , actually. From an interview I gave to _The_ _Daily Telegraph_ , I believe. I still stand by it.”

You smile as if he’s made a joke, but the effortlessness of it spooks you.

There is nothing inside him, and there is everything outside.

You didn’t really think it through; coming to this house. You did not think about the still pulsing beat of her heart. You did not think about her still being there. 

The moment you step inside, you feel you’ve entered her body.

Every corner is lit and bright. Potted plants and shaggy carpets dotting spacious rooms with tasteful dead space in between. Shelves of books and art albums and a rendition of Degas’ _The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer_ , and yet over all these pretty things a strange pall of Marisol, because you have a feeling that the Degas was her idea. And right there, on the coffee table, under _Architectural Digest_ is Gelsey Kirkland’s book of memoirs, _Dancing On My Grave._ Your sister was a devotee. You turn away, head swimming.

He comes back with two glasses of wine. He’s shrugged off his jacket. His skin is visible through his shirt, a false covering, a flesh that hides nothing. 

“Do you want to see it?” he asks quietly.

“See what?”

“The pool.”

The terrible thing about it is that it looks like any other pool, perfectly innocuous. Blue velvet, flickering in the dim pool lights, a perpetual frolicking movement, as if no water could ever be still. There’s a wide flight of stairs where you can picture Marisol sitting, trying out the water with her toes. The water stretches to the edge of the terrace and there’s the optical illusion of it falling endlessly over a precipice. You think they're called infinity pools. Beyond, you see the lights in the hills. You note that there’s no ladder. In order to get out, you’d have to swim back to the stairs. 

You take a gulp of chilled wine.

“It’s a beautiful view, isn’t it?” he says.

You stare at the water. “Yes. I thought you’d want to sell the place.”

“I considered it, but I ultimately couldn’t do it. I suppose I couldn’t bring myself to erase any part of her. Not even this one.”

In his very polite, subdued way, he can say a great many terrible things. And no one corrects him. 

“That’s not why you didn’t sell it,” you say.

He glances sideways, nonplussed. 

“No?”

“No.”

“Then …why haven’t I?” he asks, indulging you.

 _Spectat sua praemia raptor_ , you think. The captor gloats over his prize.

“You enjoy being able to look at this pool and know that she died here. Maybe it makes you feel powerful.”

A part of you recognizes the stupidity of goading a man you do not know, standing here on the edge of the pool, overlooking the hills.

He raises the glass to his lips and takes a sip of wine. He has rolled down his sleeves. You stare at the light hairs on his arm.

“I admit I don’t understand you. I don’t understand why you don’t like me,” he says, after a moment. “I have done nothing to deserve your censure or your accusations.”

“You’re right. You don’t understand.”

His jaw clicks. “No one has been this wretched to me before. What else could I possibly do to prove myself to you?”

You look at him. You feel cold and intransigent. “There’s nothing you could do to prove yourself to me. Thank you for the wine. I’ll go fetch her things now.”

You turn away from the pool and walk back into the house.

You can feel him behind you. You can hear his footsteps, following you. A weird thrill runs down your spine. You stop at the foot of the stairs.

“You don’t have to come with me.”

He takes you by the crook of your arm and pulls you away from the stairs. You try to sweep past him, but he steps in front of you and your back hits the wall behind you. 

“Of course I have to come with you,” he says, standing close to you, but not touching you. His blue eyes are scalpel-sharp. “You won’t know where to look.”

“I’m sure I can find my way.”

“This is still my house. What kind of host would I be if I let you run around without guidance?”

You lift your chin. “If only you’d had that kind of forethought when Marisol was still alive.”

Like the beak of a bird, his hand clips your jaw, fingers whitening at the end, thumb pressing down on your lower lip. “It’s not my fault your sister liked her drink.”

You sneer. Your tongue almost licks his thumb. “Spoken like a man who doesn’t want to erase any part of her.”

His hand on your jaw tightens and he oh-so-gently slams your head into the wall. “Will you please stop being such a fucking bitch about it?”

It’s so jarring to hear him say the words “fucking bitch” in that mellifluous accent. You almost like him for it. 

You laugh, baring your teeth. “Well, since you said _please_.”

If you had to recount the events to someone else, you’d say he was the one who lifted the hem of your dress and put his hand between your legs, because he did. But you’d leave out the part where you grabbed the collar of his shirt and helped him hitch your legs around his waist.

You have to hold onto him. In fact, you have to claw the shirt off his back to keep abreast of the situation, but he’s got a good grip on you, strong hands trained for the part of the soldier holding your hips and waist, so that you’re not in any danger of falling. Besides, the urgency you share is not the kind that allows for measured reflection. The erotic is often mechanic; you are going through the motions that ensure optimal mutual annihilation. You don’t have to be people right now.

You’re not even objects.

There’s no object-permanence. The whiplash of your movements, the fast and loose ins and outs, the ugly way your bones grind against each other, as if foregoing skin, the feel of his cock, painful but ultimately quite ordinary, ordinary in the sense that _yes_ , there’s nothing wrong with this, nothing at all, because it’s all about using his cock to get higher and higher, high enough for your head to crack through the ceiling– all of these things seem to lose contour, even when you are paying attention. Don’t blink and you’ll still miss it. 

He fucks you against the wall, and you fuck him too. You look straight at him for the entire duration, so that he knows you’re onto him, and he looks straight at you for the entire duration, so that he can watch you watching, and you witness the empty aquarium of his eyes, the empty spectacle of him, the talented Mr. Ripley whose orgasms are usually elaborate affairs of self-persuasion, unless he’s fucking the sister of the dead woman he once supposedly loved. In this particular case, he comes harder and faster and you hear his inelegant groans in your ear as you shudder through your own shame. He pulls your hips closer and empties himself in you and you rub yourself against him and let the machine of it overwhelm you, the purifying bath of lust, as you try to keep your eyes open, but ultimately, you have to understand that you can only experience this pleasure in the dark.

His breath on the side of your neck makes you open your eyes.

“See,” he says, trying to sound barely winded, “I told you you’d come round, eventually.”

You asked Marisol once why she got a tattoo of your mother’s name above her left breast. She told you it gave her a sense of power. Your mother may have cast her out, but she could not remove herself from your sister’s body. It was a strange kind of ownership.

That and she knew it would piss her off.

You think about her body as he pours you another glass.

“You didn’t tell me what you thought of my performance.”

You choke a little.

“In the play,” he specifies.

You swallow. “Well, you weren’t always convincing.”

“When was I not convincing?” he says, resting his elbow on the counter, leaning towards you, his body vulnerable, open to blows.

His shirt is soaked through. You haven’t bothered to wipe the cum between your thighs.

“I can’t remember,” you say.

“Well, that’s no use to me, is it?”

You like the entitlement that oozes through his pores.

“Maybe if you went over some of the big moments for me, it would jog my memory,” you drawl.

“There’s an idea.”

That’s how you find yourself with your head on the counter, supine, dress hitched around your elbows, his glass of wine next to your head. He strokes your bare ass and clears his throat.

“Like a dull actor now, I have forgot my part, and I am out, even to a full disgrace,” he begins in sad, declamatory fashion, sliding his fingers through your slickness. “Best of my flesh, forgive my tyranny, but do not say for that “forgive our Romans”.”

He rubs his cock against your entrance and bends over you and kisses the bare flesh where your dress is partly unzipped. “O, a kiss, long as my exile, sweet as my revenge!”

You giggle, nauseous and excited, and you part your legs further. He thrusts into you with anger, for dramatic effect.

“Now, by the jealous queen of heaven, that kiss I carried from thee, dear; and my true lips hath virgined it ever since.”

You press your face into the granite and laugh as he fucks you through it.

“Was that any better?” he asks you in the middle of it. He’s fucking you slower, intent on your answer, intent on his performance, in and out.

“Yes,” you say, clutching the edge of the counter. “It was better.”

He bends over you, pinning you, elbow to elbow, his chin resting on your shoulder. He quickens his pace. “But was it more convincing?”

You turn your head to look at him. His eyes look like they want to fuck your eyes. His mouth hovers over your mouth as if to kiss you.

“Verdict’s still out,” you say and you put your head down, narrowly avoiding that bit of intimacy.

You were also hoping you wouldn’t come a second time, but you’re not that lucky.

He does order pizza. You end up eating it in bed, upstairs. He spreads a table cloth over the comforter. He brings plates too. No cutlery, though.

You have both undressed. He’s sitting cross-legged in his underwear. There’s not a bit of fat on him, but he’s oddly liquid-looking, skin sloughing off like ice cream. He looks old and boyish.

“I haven’t done this since I was a child,” he says while chewing.

“Eaten carbs?”

He smiles. “That too.”

You lick your fingers and then wipe them on the table cloth. You look around the room. You know that door to the left is probably the walk-in closet and Marisol’s clothes are probably lined up on the hangers.

“What was it like having sex with Taylor Swift?” you ask, taking another gulp of wine.

He snorts. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

He considers it for a moment. “Elaborate, I suppose, but otherwise normal. She required more of a narrative.”

“A narrative.”

“A story about who we were and what we were doing,” he explains.

“Don’t you like stories?”

“Of course I like stories. But sometimes it’s nice not to be storied. It’s nice not to have meaning.”

“That’s probably the most honest thing you’ve said all night,” you point out, discarding a crust.

“I’m always honest.”

You snort. “Ever rough her around her?”

He frowns. “What? No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t do that sort of thing.”

“Not when she’s famous, you don’t. She would have told on you.” You wink.

He pretends to be offended by your little joke, but you can see the smirk at the corner of his mouth.

He gets off the bed, looks down at you, surrounded by crumbs and ketchup.

“Why don’t we clean you up?”

Which is literally what he does.

He makes you stand in the middle of the cavernous shower and he gently cups the water in his hands instead of letting you stand under the spray. He pours water over your head like the Pope. He soaps you up, one limb at a time. Motherly. He grabs one of his razors. He places your foot on his thigh and begins to shave your leg, methodically.

He’s much better at it. All the small hairs are gone.

You lie down in bed, face to face.

He runs his knuckles down your arm, going from shoulder to elbow.

You try to shrug him off, but his fingers always return.

The sheets feel too hot.

He’s probably slept with Marisol in this bed.

The shiver of the dead comes over you and you cross your arms over your breasts. You remember that the Manananggal can pull your heart out of your chest. The remover is always nearby. You have to protect yourself.

“Will you tell me now what you said at the funeral?” he asks softly.

“What?”

“That bit of Latin.”

“Nothing important. Just a joke from our childhood.”

“You joked in Latin?”

“Sometimes.”

“It didn’t sound like a joke.”

“How would you know?”

“Well, I studied Classics at Cambridge.”

“Bullshit.”

“No, really. Earned a double first too.”

You wrinkle your nose. “Good for you. Next you’ll tell me you attended Eton, too.”

“Of course I did.”

“Jesus. Don’t tell people that.”

He smiles. “All right, then. Tell me. What did you say to her?”

The funny thing is you don’t want to tell him anything. You have guarded yourself against it, have specifically instructed your mouth to give him nothing, but you find yourself speaking anyway.

“It’s a line from Ovid.”

His eyes brighten. “Go on.”

So you tell him. You tell him about the _Metamorphoses_ and your father’s lifelong attempt to translate it, his stint at the university in Manila, his scholarship to America, his one-way-ticket trip with your mother, his refusal to return, the loss of his scholarship, the decay and transformation of Californian life, your birth, your friendship with him, his departure, your mother’s collapse. You don’t vary in your storytelling, you tell it all as if it were someone else’s life.

Finally, you tell him about Philomela and Procne, your father’s little game, chasing you to bed every night, chasing you away from him, ultimately. 

When you’re done, you lower your hands from your chest. You unsheathe yourself.

He puts his hand on your breast and strokes the flesh. “Which one are you?”

“What?”

“Nightingale or swallow?”

He sounds like the voice in your head, asking the same question.

You’re spared from answering. He reaches forward and cups the side of your face and kisses you on the lips when you’re not paying attention.

Your mouth does give him something, after all.

You wake up with his voice in your head again.

The morning sun is bald. The room looks like scalloped flesh, like being inside her again, but this time she has been turned inside out.

You roll your head over the edge of the bed and let it hang there, blood pooling to your temples.

He’s talking about making breakfast and then perhaps going for a drive. He’d like to show you some of Marisol’s favorite spots in town. Places off the beaten track, hidden little sanctuaries. Maybe you could stay for a few days and explore. He has to fly to London in two weeks’ time. Have you ever been to London? He’s sure you’d enjoy it. What about the film premiere? Wouldn’t it be nice for you to attend, in your sister’s memory?

He comes round to your side of the bed, fully dressed. He bends down. Picks up your head and gives your temples a soft kiss.

“That’s bad for you.”

You stare at him blearily. “Head’s killing me.”

“Oh. I’ll get you something for that. Coffee or tea?”

“Water.”

He kisses your head again.

You hear him puttering downstairs with great relish. He’s got the whole day planned out.

But what you want to do is grab your sister’s things and leave.

You crawl out of bed with a groan. You lower your head until it brushes the floor, prayer-like. You heave and spit something on the carpet, something that looks like black bile, a little liquid black stone. You touch it with your finger. It’s gelatinous. You want to wretch. You drag yourself limping to the bathroom.

You put your head under the tap and you splash water on your face. You swallow and swill and spit out. You need to get it all out, whatever it is. You feel it’s lodged deep inside you, and if you could make your body obey, the poisonous bile would slide out of its own accord. 

But nothing slides out.

When you come up for air, the mirror is your sister.

Her face stares at you from within. Her small face, transposed blurrily over your face, shrinking you down to size. You rub your eyes clean. You hold onto the sink’s edge and turn your head sideways, but her profile conquers yours. She’s found you.

You grip the edges, even as your fingers slip, and you scream.

You scream until your throat closes up with bile.

He’s cradling your head in his lap, brushing the hair away from your face. You feel a sense of déjà vu.

“How are you feeling, darling?”

You try to open your mouth, but only a hoary whisper comes out, as if from the mouth of a stone. He wipes the drool from your chin. The muscles of your throat try in vain to work around a word.

“What’s that?” He bends his ear next to your mouth. “What are you trying to say?”

You stare at him, moaning softly under your breath.

His fingers caress your throat. “That’s all right. You don’t need to speak. I know what you need.”

You are sick. It must be the grief taking its toll. It must be the humidity in the air. Or it must be the fact that you don’t eat well. You don’t take good care of yourself. He says he’ll feed you properly. He makes you sit in his lap as he spoon-feeds you blueberry and banana porridge. You can’t swallow down the milk anymore, but he makes you, spoon by spoon. He rests his chin on top of your head. You feel the weight there, blocking an exit path. 

He makes you take some vitamins with a big glass of water. He says you need comfortable clothes. He takes out a pair of Marisol’s flared linen trousers and one of her floral shirts. You didn’t know she liked linen trousers or floral shirts. He dresses you. You are unable to resist any act of kindness. You feel abandoned on a raft in the middle of the ocean. Drained and out of fresh water. Whenever you try to speak, you feel like you’re swallowing your tongue.

You can still walk, but he carries you downstairs in his arms, looking down at you with intense concern. He makes you lie down on the couch and you cuddle together, your head on his chest, while he reads to you from an essay by Susan Sontag. He tells you this was part of his research for Coriolanus.

“Narratives can make us understand,” he reads. “Photographs do something else: they haunt us. Consider one of the unforgettable images of the war in Bosnia, a photograph of which the _New York Times_ foreign correspondent John Kifner wrote: "The image is stark, one of the most enduring of the Balkan wars: a Serb militiaman casually kicking a dying Muslim woman in the head. It tells you everything you need to know." But of course it doesn't tell us everything we need to know.” 

You flinch at the image projected onto your eyelids. 

“What do you think of that?” he asks.

You shake your head mutely.

He continues. “From an identification given by the photographer, Ron Haviv, we learn the photograph was taken in the town of Bijeljina in April 1992, the first month of the Serb rampage through Bosnia. From behind, we see a uniformed Serb militiaman, a youthful figure with sunglasses perched on the top of his head, a cigarette between the second and third fingers of his raised left hand…”

The ghastly pictures keep you awake – the smoking soldier, the Muslim woman and her caved-in head, your sister’s head screwed on top of yours, her high-heels floating in the pool - but his feather-light cadence lulls you to sleep.

“Awful, isn’t it?” he murmurs against your hair. “What happened to that woman.” 

A few hours later, he fingers you awake. He teases your clit until it hurts. He kisses your mouth and drinks up all your half-formed words. He glows with power and health and beauty, rejuvenated every time he kisses you. You feel lucky. Other unfortunate souls get their heads kicked in.

You lie catatonic on a white towel at the edge of the pool. If you stretched out your hand you could touch the gleaming silver surface of the water. Your sunglasses are askew. He rights them. He gives you another cool glass of wine. He tells you about the things you’ll see in London. He wants to buy you some warmer clothes, since you didn’t bring any. He takes your measurements. He brings out a measuring tape. You find it quaint that he owns a measuring tape, but you can’t share this with him. He lets the tape dangle over his shoulder, as if he were, as always, a character. 

His warm hands turn you this way and that, feel out your ratio, your circumference, the space you take up between his hands.

He fucks you by the side of the pool, lifting your hips for you, doing the work for you, adjusting your arms, placing them around his neck. You’re still wearing the sunglasses. You smile up at him. Maybe he’s going to take your head and shove it in the pool and hold it there until no more bubbles rise up, and wouldn’t that be nice?

He comes inside you, but you don’t come at all.

He looks beautifully upset. He caresses you and sinks down between your legs and he eats out your cunt, trying to make you feel something. It seems to last forever.

You flicker in and out of consciousness. You turn your head sideways. You see your reflection in the pool, but it’s not you. It’s Marisol. Her head breaks the pool’s surface. Her honey face is dappled with dew. She floats there, below you.

You open your mouth, but it might as well be filled with water.

Your sister smiles and places a finger over her lips. “Don’t try to speak. Just remember what Father said. The Manananggal is not always a man. The Manananggal is usually a woman.”

You reach out to touch her, but your fingers only touch water.

You stare up at the sky and you feel elated, and you clench around his fingers and you come into his mouth, and he thinks it’s because of him.

In the middle of the night, you lift your head from the morass of sleep. His arm is wound fast around your waist. You wave your hand in front of his face. You outline his Roman profile with your thumb. He’s asleep. You gently wriggle out of his grasp and slide down the covers to the foot of the bed.

Your legs feel like broken stubs, but you manage to limp into the closet. Your sister’s clothes are still lined up on the rack.

You bury your head in the dresses and inhale deeply. You embrace them, clutching them to your chest.

Your sister rises in that embrace. The shape of her, that intimate shape you learned as children, only now in silk and chiffon.

She clutches you to her chest.

 _I’m sorry_ , you think.

 _You should be. You buried me with one of Dad’s boring notebooks. Do you want to know what it says?_ she chants into your anguished mind.

_No._

_Colla petentem ense ferit Procne, lateri qua pectus adhaeret …iugulum ferro Philomela resolvit._

The words pour over you like needles. _I don’t understand._

 _I’m not exactly fluent either, but it goes something like this. Procne held her son to her breast. Her sister cut his throat._ She pauses. _You know the rest._

Between your arms there’s only silk like water.

When you walk out of the closet, you are stopped short by the sight of him. Not him, his eyes.

His eyes are lanterns in the dark, lit from within, glowing a vivisected blue.

You shiver under his gaze.

“Come here.”

You crawl back into bed. He frames your face between his hands. He rests his forehead against yours. “Do you know, I might actually love you. Or, at least, I feel very close to it.”

You nod listlessly, closing your eyes. 

He lifts your face, shaking it slightly, forcing your eyes open. “I know that can be hard on a person. It is more difficult to accept love than to give it, I’ve found. But I believe that, in time, you’ll be able to accept it. And it will make you very happy. Won’t it?”

You touch the side of his face. There’s cold sweat on his temples. 

He leans into your touch.

“Yes, very happy,” he says.

You don’t know where the days and weeks have gone. You’re leaving for London tomorrow. You’ve packed your belongings together. He’s made you try on a few outfits. He likes you best in the peat-colored trench coat, he likes the way it glides down your body, makes you look taller, willowy, distinguished. He’s gone downstairs to make dinner. He says he wants you to come down wearing something beautiful.

You stand in front of the mirror. You’re not so afraid of it anymore. It’s only your sister. You lift one arm. She lifts it too. You slide the razor over the bristly hairs and she does the same. You nick the skin next to your breast and a small droplet of blood blooms there. It is she who rubs it with her finger. 

What would make you beautiful? What would make you whole?

The Manananggal is a woman, a remover, a separator, a body split in two: Mar y Sol.

You join your hand with hers and rub the red smear next your breast, but it just grows bigger. You rub it all over your chest and arms. You cover yourself in it. You admire the chitinous lamina of your skin, the carapace that now adorns you. Your flesh is your armor.

The razor melds with your phalanges. You look at the tips of your fingers as they lengthen, nails growing into claws.

You hold your claws to the light.

Behind you, the bat’s wings unfurl with a strange creaking, like ship’s sails. Your spine protests against the weight, yet your chest feels lighter.

You stand tall, flapping your black wings gently.

Perhaps we translate with our bodies. You are continuing your father’s work.

Metamorphosis.

He cannot see your wings as you stand at the top of the stairs looking down. He only sees your naked body.

You smile surreptitiously as you climb down the stairs, every step a luxurious sinking into air. You’re flying, wings keeping you afloat.

Every part of you vibrates with hunger.

He watches you descend. He’s both intrigued and irritated.

“You said to come down wearing something beautiful,” you say flirtatiously.

You have not used your voice in a while. It comes out huskier, ragged.

He’s momentarily awed by it. You walk up to him and place your arms around his neck, wings enfolding him.

“It’s so good to hear your voice, darling,” he says, running his hands up and down your spine. “I’ve missed it.”

“Have you?”

“Very much. Are you hungry?”

You draw him towards you. “You have no idea.”

You kiss him softly on the lips and tug at his lower lip with your teeth. He tries to catch your mouth, but you evade him. You let your hand linger on his chest as you move past him. You walk towards the French windows. You want to have a swim in the pool. You glance over your shoulder. He’s meant to follow you. 

He does.

You climb down the steps into the water.

You pull your hair to the side and caress the swell of your breast. The water feels cool on your skin. You can hear him shrug off his shoes and trousers.

He sinks into the water after you.

You swim away from him. You swim across the pool to that far-off edge where the water disappears and infinity begins. 

He swims after you.

You clutch the granite with your fingers.

His breath is on your wings. He kisses the flapping skin.

His hands come around your waist and slide down between your legs. You turn in his arms and catch his mouth. The kiss is searing, hot-blooded. You can taste the way it courses through him, desire and life-giving blood. You nip the side of his jaw and you kiss his Adam’s apple.

When you break away, you see your sister behind him. Her swollen arms come round him, over his chest, holding him down. Her small head rests in the crook of his shoulder. She winks at you.

You reach forward and kiss your sister on the lips and he thinks you’re kissing him.

Marisol tightens her grip on him, exposing his neck. Tom yanks at the invisible chain. He struggles for a moment, disoriented.

He opens his mouth to ask you.

Your claws come down on his throat. You slash it into ribbons.

His blue eyes widen and whiten.

He raises a hand to his throat. He’s already choking on the blood. His mouth gags with it.

The water turns pink and grey.

You lick your claws.

You don’t wish to drink from him or chew out his heart. It is enough to watch him bleed.

He reaches out for you, tries to hold onto you, tries to beg for life, any kind of life, but you only stare at him impassively. You swim away.

You swim back to the stairs. You pull your body out of the water. You sit down on the steps and unfurl your wet wings.

You watch him flounder in the water, a bloody wreckage, the old race fighting to live against all odds. He chokes and chokes and chokes on it.

He gives you one last blue-eyed look of worshipful fear before he sinks, face down, into the water.

“Nulla fuga est capto, spectat sua praemia raptor,” you say, your voice sounding ancient and alive.

You gloat over your prize.

You glance sideways. Your sister is sitting next to you. She’s smiling like when she was a child.

You enfold her with your wing and stare at the glittering lights of the hills below.

He was right. It is a beautiful view.

When the police go over the camera footage, they see the famous actor walking right into the pool, still wearing his shoes.

They watch him floundering and thrashing, fighting the water as if it were a living thing, which, in a sense, it is.

They watch his movement slacken. They watch him grow sluggish. He’s barely keeping afloat. He’s filling his lungs with water.

He sinks.

Face down into the water.

**Author's Note:**

> i'll admit, that last climactic sequence was definitely inspired by this iconic scene in black swan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCmY7Q8wwts  
> anyway, i love killing men, hbu


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